What you may have missed at today’s Payment Services Seminar?

An eclectic group of payment professionals attended this morning’s Payment Services Seminar to discuss PSD2 and its profound impact on the payments industry.

Joining the speaker panel was Icon’s Sahana Hussain, a senior consultant in Icon’s API Banking area, who spoke about the role of APIs in the overall market trend towards digitalization of financial services. Sahana explained what practical steps a bank can take today to build the technical and organizational capabilities needed to survive in the API economy where banks will increasingly act as aggregators of third party services.  Sahana’s presentation explains the role of an API Platform, and the changes to delivery and governance models that are needed to take advantage of it.

Key insights from Icon’s presentation are:

Providing a single window onto all the products such as accounts, loans, mortgages and insurance offered by the bank and by its B2B partners, is key to providing a compelling customer experience.

Right now, banks can and should be putting in place the foundations needed to compete in the API economy.

Things that banks should be doing today, and that Icon is already engaged in delivery for our clients include:

Introduce an enterprise API management platform, supported by a 2-speed IT delivery model and the appropriate governance framework. This involves a cultural change, and the effort involved should not be underestimated.
Identify data to be presented via APIs, the sources of the required data within the organizational silos, and how to ensure data quality and consistency.
More information about the seminar can be found at –Taylor Wessing.  If you would like to know more about Icon’s presentation, ‘Technical issues & solutions arising from PSD2 changes and open banking’, please email daniela.sarti@IconSolutions.com